U.S. Department of Energy awards National industry consortium $2.5
million for a scalable national platform to develop model codes,
standards, rules, and processes that will enable reduced deployment
times and costs for solar PV installations.

September 20, 2011 07:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SolarTech,
a non-profit industry consortium with a mission to remove non-hardware,
process related cost-barriers to acceleration of U.S. solar markets has
been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to deploy Solar3.0
– A National Platform for Process Innovation to Deliver PV.

Solar3.0 delivers process innovation through standardization of
local land use, zoning code ordinances, permitting processes and
interconnection rules for distributed PV. The team will leverage
existing Department of Energy work such as the Solar America Board of
Codes and Standards, the Solar America Communities team, the Interstate
Renewable Energy Council (IREC)-led Solar Instructor Training
Network-Regional Training Providers, and others. SolarTech will build
upon this work, conduct technical analysis, training, and stakeholder
engagement to develop and promote widespread adoption of best in class
tools for permitting, inspection, and interconnection by states,
utilities, local jurisdictions, and federal agencies.

“This is a great accomplishment for our team and the organization,” says
Doug Payne, SolarTech’s co-founder and Executive Director. “It is an
even greater honor to be selected by the Department of Energy as a
national platform for process innovation, targeting the removal of
hundreds of millions of dollars of market friction over the next few
years. We are very excited about the opportunity.”

The Solar3.0 platform goal is to achieve a 50% reduction in
non-hardware BOS costs across approximately 90% of the U.S. solar market
in targeted solar communities by 2014 through development and
implementation of innovative, scalable regulatory approaches and process
enhancements across multiple levels of government and industry.

It is a high leverage investment of DOE funds to catalyze rapid solution
paths to achieve SunShot BOS soft cost reduction goals by 2014, create
new jobs and save existing ones. The Solar3.0 platform intends to
drastically reduce the overhead cost of installing solar projects that
will spur economic development, create jobs and provide direct value for
communities nationwide.

The Solar3.0 Team is made up of National, Regional, and Industry
Partners including: Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (UL), UL University
(ULU), the International Association of Electrical Inspectors (IAEI),
Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA), The VoteSolar Initiative, ICLEI
- Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), SRA/International, Rocky
Mountain Institute (RMI), East Bay Green Corridor (EBGC), Solar Sonoma
County (SSC), along with leading industry partners SunPower, Mainstream
Energy, Burnham Energy; OnGrid Solar, SolarNexus, and SierraClub.
SolarTech will guide the project through Benchmarking, Development,
Implementation, and Market Impact phases at national, state and
local/regional levels.

ABOUT SOLARTECH:

Operating at the intersection of industry, consumers, local governments,
and utilities SolarTech provides the path to make solar happen through
better tools enabling the industry to execute faster at lowest possible
cost, accelerating the growth of solar energy at the state and local
level. On behalf of our 120 members, Board, and partners, our mission is
to develop, deploy and disseminate best practices and standards that
make mass adoption of solar a reality through our core initiatives:
workforce development, financing, performance, installation, permitting,
and interconnection. For information on SolarTech, visit www.solartech.org.

About SRA International, Inc.

SRA is dedicated to solving complex problems of global significance for
government organizations serving the national security, civil
government, health, and intelligence and space markets. Founded in 1978,
the company has expertise in such areas as cyber security; disaster
response planning; enterprise resource planning; environmental
strategies; energy systems and sustainability; IT systems,
infrastructure and managed services; learning technologies; logistics;
public health preparedness; public safety; strategic management
consulting; and systems engineering. SRA employs approximately 7,000
employees serving clients from its headquarters in Fairfax, Va., and
offices around the world. For additional information on SRA, please
visit www.sra.com.

About Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (UL):
UL is an internationally recognized product safety testing,
certification and standards development organization. UL is a leading
product certification company in the renewable energy industry and the
preferred choice of U.S. regulatory officials. As a global leader in
standards development, UL publishes the UL standards for safety for the
U.S. market and actively participates in developing global International
Electro-technical Commission (IEC) standards. UL
University (ULU) is UL’s wholly-owned subsidiary is respected
globally in instructional design for general professionals, local
governments and private industry. http://ul.com/usa/eng/pages/

About International Association of Electrical
Inspectors (IAEI): IAEI has been a core leader in the
electrical industry, actively integrating such diverse groups as
inspectors, testing agencies, standards organizations, manufacturers,
distributors, installers and contractors, since 1928. From the
beginning, the association has focused on promoting safe products,
code-compliant installations, and thorough inspections. A natural
outgrowth of this focus has been total immersion in the code development
process, both through investments and through membership in each
code-making panel during each cycle. Additionally, IAEI has concentrated
on offering comprehensive training and certification in the U.S.,
Canada, the Caribbean, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico. Recognizing a scarcity
of good materials, IAEI began developing and publishing various
publications and training presentations, established a train-the-trainer
program and has co-branded two online training programs. IAEI will
utilize its experience in developing model codes, standards, rules, and
process in both an advisory role and through interfacing with AHJs. http://www.iaei.org/

About Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI):
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is an independent, entrepreneurial,
nonprofit think-and-do tank. RMI emphasizes integrative design, advanced
technologies, and mindful markets in fulfilling its mission to drive the
efficient and restorative use of resources. RMI’s strategic focus is to
map and drive the U.S. transition from fossil fuels to efficiency and
renewables by 2050. RMI will measure the project’s impact through an
interactive model showing project impact in areas such as adoption,
market coverage, and cost reduction and work with DOE to ensure
information is easily accessible for purposes of analyzing and ranking
permitting processes based on the time, cost, predictability and
user-friendly characteristics associated with each; and the
appropriateness of the proposed quantitative metrics for evaluating
project impacts on process time improvements and BOS cost reductions. http://rmi.org/rmi/

About ICLEI-Local Governments for
Sustainability USA (ICLEI USA): ICLEI USA is the
leading membership association of cities & counties committed to climate
protection, clean energy, and sustainability. For nearly 20 years ICLEI
USA has been delivering tools, resources and services to help local
governments achieve their goals faster and more effectively.In
2010, ICLEI USA was selected by DOE to conduct technical outreach to
local governments across the country to educate them about how they can
use the best practices of communities participating in DOE’s Solar
America Cities program. ICLEI USA’s network of nearly 600 cities, towns
and counties, will serve as a bridge between the Project Team and local
governments by leading the outreach, education and training effort with
local governments, and play a supporting role in the benchmarking and
development of tools and resources to enable rapid adoption by local
governments. http://www.icleiusa.org/

About East Bay Green Corridor: The
EBGC’s eight-member cities (including Berkeley, a Solar America City),
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California
at Berkeley have committed to implementing a regional standardized solar
energy permitting process. They will contribute data from within Green
Corridor cities, recommend policy guidelines, serve as a beta testing
ground and pilot sites, taking into account resource constraints and
geographic factors within eight local governments, and offer solutions
which may serve as a model for other local governments. http://www.ebgreencorridor.org/

About Solar Sonoma County (SSC)-SSC,
in partnership with the City of Santa Rosa, is the only countywide SAC.
SSC will address the unique concerns of a multi-jurisdiction beta and
pilot area by working with governments to address local system
requirements and needs. SSC will bring a variety of City and County
processes for government adoption, including policy changes to develop
transition plans for implementations serving as a countywide model for
local governments going through this process or contemplating
standardization. http://solarsonomacounty.org/

About Vote Solar: Vote Solar works
to promote scalable solutions to enable to use of solar energy. Vote
Solar’s vast network and experience in outreach to AHJs at municipal and
state-level entities makes them a valuable team member to help promote
the implementation of solutions crafted in Phase 2. www.votesolar.org

About Sierra Club: Since 1892, the
Sierra Club has been working to protect communities, wild places, and
the planet itself as the largest and most influential grassroots
environmental organization in the United States. Sierra Club will
partner with SolarTech in a campaign first in California, and later
nationally, to work with our 1.3 million supporters in urging local
governments to make it cheap and easy for residents to go solar. The
Sierra Club’s local volunteer base is passionate about solar, and with a
presence in all 50 states, we have a unique opportunity to advocate for
simpler solar standards at the local level leveraging the Solar 3.0
Project Team to develop the best tools, model guidelines, and proposed
standards for which our activists should be advocating. http://www.sierraclub.org/

About University of Missouri: The
University of Missouri was founded in 1839 in Columbia, Mo., as the
first public university west of the Mississippi River with a reputation
of excellence in teaching and research, and is the flagship campus of
the four-campus University
of Missouri System. The University of Missouri will deliver a vastly
improved model solar access statute for use by state governments; a
separate model solar access ordinance for adoption by municipalities;
accessible guides to educate state and local government officials about
the model statute and ordinance and the legal and policy theories
supporting them.

Industry Partners – The following partners will play a critical
role in the dissemination of solutions across the US through our various
solar installer/dealer networks, providing feedback to the core team,
and fine tuning strategies to standardize broadly across Permitting,
Inspection, Interconnection, and Zoning best practices as developed by
the team.

About Burnham Energy: Having
obtained over 50,000 permits nationwide and 1,000 for PV systems
specifically, Burnham Energy has the experience to help in both an
advisory role and in interfacing with AHJs. Burnham’s use of digitized
repositories of AHJ information also makes them both a potential
contributor and likely user of the Solar3.0 program outputs. www.burnhamenergy.com

About SunPower – SunPower designs, manufactures and delivers the
highest efficiency, highest reliability solar cells, panels and systems
available today, with guaranteed performance and 25 year lifetimes. We
are the largest manufacturer of installed commercial and residential
systems in the U.S., providing complete EPC, financing and development
services as well as an extensive nationwide network of over 400 dealers
providing high-quality, expert installation and services in 41 States. http://us.sunpowercorp.com/

About Mainstream Energy - Mainstream Energy Corp. is the parent
company of REC Solar, Inc., an industry-leading solar provider
specializing in grid-tied residential and commercial installations, and
AEE Solar, Inc., one of the country’s largest distributors of renewable
energy systems and equipment. With a local presence in all major solar
markets and more than 6,000 systems installed, REC Solar and AEE Solar
are committed to lowering the cost of solar power through efficient
processes, innovative products and outstanding customer service. Our
companies are headquartered in San Luis Obispo, CA and employ more than
600 people. www.mainstreamenergy.com

About SolarNexus –SolarNexus is the solar industry’s leading
provider of web based solar business management software solutions.
SolarNexus has a track record of leadership and innovation in its core
products, and has successfully pioneered industry building software
initiatives for a more efficient and cost effective solar industry.
These efforts include the management and maintenance of SolarHub.com and
the creation of an industry communications standard for solar software
systems. www.solarnexus.com

About OnGrid Solar - OnGrid Solar mission is to help the solar
industry develop as in a rapid, yet predictable way by providing
expertise in the financial payback analysis of solar photovoltaics.
Standardization of Permitting, Inspection, and Interconnection related
business process across the US market reduces costs, improves the
confidence of financial analysis tools, lowers prices in a predictable
way, and expands local markets by lowering barriers to entry by smaller
companies which we serve. www.ongrid.net